


Daylight

by TortillaGuy



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, Precious Peter Parker, Sickfic, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-28 03:03:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20056972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TortillaGuy/pseuds/TortillaGuy
Summary: Tony is spending a long night fighting the urge to drink, but a sick Peter turns out to be the perfect distraction.





	Daylight

Tony tapped his foot as he heard his heart race in his ears. He looked at anything, he looked at everything, for just a split second. Nothing was enough to catch his attention and hold it for even the briefest moment. He wrung his hands together and tapped his fists on the table. He glanced through the tower’s kitchen windows at the rain pounding outside in the dark early morning. He guessed it was morning by this point, anyway--Tony had woken up around midnight and couldn’t shake the urge, the unshakable goddamn force that made him want to rip the top off a bottle of whiskey and drink it straight. He had been doing so well, too… not a drop of alcohol in the past couple of months. But now here it was, the invisible hands dragging him closer and closer to his car keys. He’d gotten rid of all the booze in the tower when he’d first gotten clean, but he knew the way to the closest liquor store by heart. He tapped his foot harder until he felt like his ankle was going to break, then harder still. He grasped his hair in his hands and pulled with all the strength he had, as if any measure of pain could distract him from the need to pour bourbon down his throat. He tore his hands from his hair and pounded the kitchen table, then regretted it. Pepper was out on business, but Peter was staying the night. If he had woken up Peter and the kid had found him like this, he would never forgive himself. After a few beats of pounding silence, he decided Peter hadn’t heard, and he got up and paced around the kitchen. The storm outside was fierce and demanding attention with every pelt on the window, but Tony heard none of it. He bolted over to the hook holding his keys and ripped them off. He had just hit the elevator button when Peter burst through the door and sprinted towards the sink. Before Tony could try to make up a lie for why he was standing with his keys in the kitchen at one in the morning, Peter doubled over the sink, vomiting. He gagged and coughed for a good two minutes before Tony could think clearly enough to put down his keys and set his hand on the small of Peter’s back. Peter jumped at the contact.  
“Mister Stark?” he asked, voice raspy. “I didn’t hear you come in.” He swayed and grabbed onto the sink for support. “Did I wake you up?”  
It was too dark for Peter to see Tony’s brow wrinkled in concern. Tony held onto Peter’s side and helped him into a chair.  
“No, I was already up, kid.” Tony felt Peter’s skin as his kid slid into a seat. It was burning up. How had he not noticed Peter was getting sick yesterday?  
“Let me help you back to bed. You’re gonna fall.”  
“No, really, I’m okay,” Peter said, but allowed Tony to pick him up regardless. Tony sucked in a breath. Peter had a high fever, so surely there would have been signs last night. He scolded himself for not paying more attention. Tony made his way down the dark hall carefully, Peter shifting between limp and rigid.   
He set his kid down in bed, reached for the covers, then thought better of it.  
“I’m going to get an ice pack and a thermometer, okay? I’ll be right back. Try to get comfortable.” Tony walked back to the kitchen, head now churning with a different mind-consuming problem. He dug around in drawers for the thermometer and pulled the ice pack from the freezer, then hurried back to Peter’s room.  
“How are you feeling, kid?” he asked, setting the pack on Peter’s forehead.  
“I’ve been better,” he said, sighing when the pack touched his skin.   
“Don’t worry, just try to rest,” Tony said, putting the thermometer into Peter’s mouth. He winced when he saw the reading: one hundred and two degrees.  
“Is it high?” Peter asked, eyes closed.  
“Uh, a little. Don’t worry about it. I’ll go see what I have in my medicine cabinet.”  
As he walked down the hall, Tony recalled the days where his medicine cabinet held nothing but booze and aspirin, and silently thanked god or the gods or whoever was out there that he’d changed. His gratitude was cut short, however, when he opened up the cabinet and remembered he’d run out of any strong medication when Pepper had the flu a few months ago. He stepped back into Peter’s room.  
“Will you be okay by yourself for a few minutes? I need to go get some medicine,” Tony said, putting his hand on Peter’s shoulder.  
“Mm-hm. I’ll be fine, Mr. Stark.” Peter’s slurred voice and closed eyes made Tony doubt it, but he ultimately had no choice.  
“Okay,” he said softly, “Call me if you need anything, and I mean anything. Don’t get up, got it?”  
Peter nodded. Tony stood up, took one last hesitant glance at his sick protege, and walked back into the kitchen. Grabbing his keys for the second time that night, Tony hit the elevator button.

~~~

Finding a twenty-four hour pharmacy was more difficult than he’d imagined. Tony had driven five blocks with no luck, and he was running out of patience. A knot of fear in his stomach told him that he’d been away from Peter for too long, and he was about to head back to the tower to call Bruce and force him to wake up and take care of Peter when he spotted the answer to his prayers: a pharmacy with its lights still on.   
He parked the car and a confusing wave of familiarity washed over him. Tony took a moment to look around. Yes, he had definitely been there before, but the memories came back to him in a weird, wishy-washy way… everything was blurred and lopsided… almost as if he’d been drunk. It hit him. Directly in front of Tony was the liquor store he had come to so many times, when it was late night and he was desperate. The lights inside shone on amber bottles of bourbon, crystal clear vodka bottles perfect for passing off as water, and crimson containers of the expensive red wine he would buy in bulk for parties.  
The urge hit like five thousand gallons of rushing water. He reached for the door handle, then yanked his hand away as if it had seared him. He forced himself to stare at the ground, then turned his body, heavy as a boulder, and took careful steps away from the liquor store, and entered the pharmacy.

~~~

Fifteen minutes later Tony gently pushed open Peter’s door.  
“Kid, are you still awake?” he whispered. Peter shifted, opened his eyes barely enough to see, and attempted to sit up. He fumbled, but Tony caught him before he could fall back down.  
“I’m awake,” he said, voice raspy and hardly audible.  
“Maybe you shouldn’t be,” Tony said, pulling the pills from a plastic bag. “These will help you sleep, and this should help with the fever.” After Tony set up and administered the medications, he took Peter’s temperature again. He frowned. No change. At least it wasn’t getting worse.  
“Want a new ice pack? Need anything to eat? Are you too hot? Cold?” Tony asked, rubbing Peter’s pale arm.  
“I’m fine, Mister Stark. But, uh…”  
“What is it, kid? I’ll get you whatever you need.”  
“Could we, uh… watch a movie?”  
Tony was a little taken aback.  
“A movie? Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”  
“I can’t sleep with this pain in my stomach. I need a distraction until the pills kick in,” he said with what Tony could only assume was a blush, since his face had paled so much.  
“Alright. Fine. But you need to actually try to sleep. No exciting movies.”  
“But Mister Stark--” Peter tried to sit up again. Tony scooped him up and headed for the living room. Peter leaned into him.  
“What about Star Trek?”  
Tony nodded.  
“Okay, Star Trek is pretty boring.”  
“It’s not boring, you just don’t get the premise--”  
Twenty minutes later, Peter was sound asleep against Tony. Tony smiled and pulled him closer. He was beginning to drift off too, finally, and another unending night fighting the unconquerable urge was breaking into daylight.


End file.
